The case of Milliken vs. Jacono, where a home seller (Jacono) didn't disclose that a murder-suicide had been committed in the house, reminds me a lot of Freeling vs. Questa Verde.

Though the facts are somewhat different, the main issue in that case, too, was the lack of disclosure concerning a stigmatizing event that lowered the value of the property.

In 1976, Steven and Diane Freeling moved into a real-estate development called Questa Verde Estates. Six years later, strange things started to occur in their home. Furniture moved around on its own, strange voices could be heard coming through the television set, and then their 5-year-old daughter disappeared.

It turned out the house was haunted and the Freeling's daughter, Carol Ann, had been kidnapped and dragged into another dimension by an evil spirit.

It took the efforts of a paranormal psychologist and a clairvoyant to return Carol Ann to the land of the living. This, however, made “the beast” really mad and he ultimately destroyed the house by sucking it into the other dimension.

How was all this Cuesta Verde's fault? Well, first of all, when the company built the Freelings' house it didn't disclose that it was built on top of an old cemetery. And second, the company only moved the headstones, it never relocated the bodies, hence creating the problem of all those angry spirits.

All this was well-documented in the 1982 film “Poltergeist.”

What the movie never got to was the lawsuit filed by the Freelings (played by Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams) against Cuesta Verde and Freelings' boss Mr. Teague (who was played by Wilkes-Barre's own James Karen).

The Freelings lost their case for the same reason Janet Milliken lost her's, because home sellers are not required by law to disclose such information about a property. Only “material defects” of a home are required to be disclosed, according to state law, not “immaterial” defects. And what's more immaterial than an evil spirit? As for murders, suicides and other bits of nastiness that can occur inside a house, it's buyer beware.

Fortunately the fictional Freelings had a standard homeowner's insurance policy that covered acts of God — or in this case, acts of Satan — and the sucking of all their worldly possessions into the spirit realm was a covered loss.

Nothing so dramatic happened in the real case of Milliken vs. Jacono.

The facts are these:

On Feb. 11, 2006, Konstantino Koumboulis, 50, shot and killed his 34-year-old wife, Georgia, in their Thornbury home, then turned the gun on himself. In September of the same year the house was snapped up at auction for $450,000 by Joe and Kathleen Jacono.

The following June, the Jaconos sold the house to Janet Milliken, who paid $610,00 for it.

Prior to the sale the Jaconos checked with the representatives of the Pennsylvania Real Estate Commission about what their obligations were about disclosure. They were were told that a murder-suicide was not a material defect that needed to be disclosed. So they didn't.

It was only after she moved into the house with her children that Milliken found out about the murder-suicide. She says that if she had known that she would not have purchased the house. She also claims since moving into the home several “paranormal events” occurred there.

I called Milliken to ask her about these alleged events, left a message, but she didn't call me back. (Maybe my message was “intercepted,” if you know what I mean).

But in her lawsuit, she did not claim any physical harm had come to her or her family as a result of this paranormal activity. She did not claim that any of her children had been kidnapped and taken into the fourth dimension, nor that it was necessary for her to hire a ghost-buster, clairvoyant or exorcist to rid the home of evil spirits.

On second thought, Milliken vs. Jacono has a lot less in common with Poltergeist, than it does with the “true story” of the famous Amityville Horror.

In November 1974, Ronald DeFeo murdered his entire family with a rifle. (It wasn't one of those scary assault weapons, but a Marlin 336C carbine). Anyway, it got the job done. He was arrested, found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

A year later, George and Kathy Lutz bought the house for $80,000. They moved in, along with Kathy's three children from a previous marriage, but only lasted 28 days. After fleeing the house, they claimed all manner of scary activity from windows and doors closing on their own, to seeing a creature with glowing eyes, to slime rolling down the walls.

They fled the house, leaving behind most of their worldly possessions.

The “true” story was made into a book and then a movie, which became a cult classic.

The story is one of the great and more profitable hoaxes in American history. While the murders occurred, all the scary paranormal activity didn't. The story was most assuredly concocted by George Lutz, who was having money problems at the time and quickly discovered he couldn't afford the mortgage. He rushed his family out of the house and started telling tall tales. His wife went along with the hoax to the point of claiming she'd been levitated off the bed and clawed by unseen beings.

The book sold 6 million copies and the movie grossed $80 million.

But here's the good news for Milliken: The Amityville house located at 112 Ocean Ave. on Long Island still stands today (unlike the Freeling's fictional abode) and the murder “stigma” hasn't affected its value one bit. Two years ago it went on the market for $1.15 million. It sold for $950,000, though the real estate website Zillow estimates its value at just $764,605.

“Nothing weird ever happened,” said former owner James Cromarty, who bought the house in foreclosure in 1977, “except for people coming by because of the book and the movie.”

Since then, the house has changed hands several times, been remodeled and remained the stuff of legends.

Who knows? The same thing could happen with Milliken's home.

And if the paranormal terrors continue and she can document them, she might even qualify for — if not a book or movie deal — at least a shot on “Ghost Hunters.”